Russia waiting for roadmap from IPC on Paralympic membership

Moscow, Oct 26 (IANS) Russia is waiting for the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to send the requirements necessary for its reinstatement in the global body, Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) Vice President Pavel Rozhkov has said.

"We are currently in talks with the IPC and are working on the roadmap. We hope that we will receive it (roadmap) in the nearest future," Rozhkov said, reports Tass.

The issue of clearing Russian Paralympians for qualifying tournaments in the run-up to the 2018 Winter Paralympics in South Korea must be resolved before next March, Rozhkov said.

"The qualifiers for Korea are about to start and the deadline for us is March or April," Rozhkov said on Tuesday.

"The International Curling Federation has already confirmed its readiness to clear our athletes for all competitions."

"The main concerns regard the skiing, biathlon, alpine skiing, snowboarding and sledge-hockey," the RPC official added.

Last week, Irina Gromova, the head coach of the Paralympic skiing and biathlon team, announced that Russian skiers and biathlon racers skipped the deadline to apply for the upcoming international tournaments, which also serve as the qualifiers for the 2018 Winter Paralympics.

Rozhkov said in late September that the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) kept providing them with very vague requirements regarding the reinstatement of the RPC membership, while the deadline for Russia to apply for qualifying tournaments ahead of the 2018 Paralympics in South Korea was about to expire.

On August 7, the IPC decided to bar the whole Russian Paralympic team from taking part in the 2016 Summer Paralympics.

The ruling came on the heels of a report delivered earlier in the summer by the Independent Commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).